2500 point ITC Tournament List

[almostmercury]

So, Ghostkeels are my favourite T'au model and I want to play them but they function strangely...

My drones were always at maximum distance because that's where they're worth the most. You can shoot your long range strong weapons at riptides protected by drones or you can shoot them at drones. If your drones are within range of small arms fire, then they evaporate really quickly. This is one of the reasons I deliberately take the 3++ on a Riptide I haven't used branch on, depending on board state.

Enter the Ghostkeel...

-2 is crazy durable and basically invulnerable against some armies. However, it's weapons are only 24" maximum, which means you just shoot the drones instead, and then the Ghostkeel becomes something you can deal with. The other issue is that it just never kills anything for me. Now, I haven't tried it now that overcharging is a flat Heavy 6, but I still just felt underwhelmed by it whenever I played it. Whereas stealth suits just do everything that a ghostkeel does that's important and you just leave the killing to tanks or riptides or whatever.

In regards to Tyranids, that's a good question. My round 1 opponent was playing Nids & GSC and I just dismantled it with ease. GSC purestrains died to overwatch (but my opponent didn't make the strongest play), Neophytes shot me a bit, but died horribly turn 1. Flyrants can kill strike teams, but can't do anything at all to Riptides and tanks. Hive Guard I just outrange. He brought 12 and they killed 1 unit of stealth suits using 2 CP and some firewarriors I fed them for objective control. I went second, so I could sent strike teams in range to hold objectives just to die the following turn. Certainly worth the points.

If I were playing against my list... I'm actually not sure what I would do. I was just able to dismantle that list so easily, it was actually frightening as a nid player. Malanthropes and fexes with sporcysts are really good. -1 to hit is painful for T'au and carnifexes are good for scoring denial in ITC. I'll have to think on it.

Did you have any ideas about it?

[autoxidation]

Other than what you've already detailed with Malanthropes, I'm not really sure. I think Tau are one of the most difficult matchups for Tyranids. FtGG and a 5+ overwatch is just so brutal. I'd definitely consider Hive Guard and unless you're playing long ways, I don't think Tau can effectively hide from 36" range for Impaler Cannons placed in a central location. Beyond a Coldstar committing suicide, I don't think Tau have a good response to Hive Guard hiding behind terrain.

Maybe Mawlocs have a place in this matchup, or even Harpies/Hive Crones.

[almostmercury]

In this list in particular, the hive guard could probably kill a tank or two in a turn, but the riptides would eat them alive if they were in range and sight. The terrain would need to be pretty favourable. Not having to interact with the HG was part of why I took this down so easily, which means I’m favoured in 4 of 6 deployments.

The -1 is really important and my mind has been going to Tyranid flyers lately. Aggressive will be the name of the game going forward.

[almostmercury]

Now that I think about it, I just bought some wyverns and basilisks from a buy and sell group. Allying AM is a good way to get missing range on strong weapons. At the very least the artillery can kill the tanks and drones from across the board. Throw in some aggressive elements and you can have everything you need to disrupt my list's game.

[mattblowers]

May 10, 2018 4:59:10 GMT almostmercury said:

The -1 is really important and my mind has been going to Tyranid flyers lately. Aggressive will be the name of the game going forward.

I wish our flyers had the -1, would greatly help with survivability. Right now they are nothing but bullet magnets.

[almostmercury]

Yeah they can start with the -1 though. The problem I have is that I play mostly itc, so 3 flyrants is the max 10+ quantity for me.

[autoxidation]

For being similarly priced, our flyers are so much worse than Winged Tyrants.

[almostmercury]

Flyrants they are not, but for 70 fewer points a crone has good weapons and better movement... granted they can’t hold objectives.

[kazetanade]

Let them be in FA and I'd be reasonably satisfied with them.

Congrats on the win you pulled, sorry i didnt seem present to offer any opinion or viewpoints.

almostmercury Tau is an army i see issues with for a GS Sling army. Like you noticed, they can tear GS apart in overwatch. The best countermeasures i can come up with are Mass Hypnopsis on the HBC Riptide and a Harpy hitting one or two of the FW. Other than MCs hitting the line i dont see how else we can survive that sort of OW craziness.

Whats your thoughts on this since you actually played it? Could ye GSC Nids do something? Or a Triple Threat?

[almostmercury]

In this particular case, I did make a mistake that my opponent didn’t see. I left a unit of fire warriors out far enough from overwatch protection, but close enough to cause close combat problems.

His play that he missed was to surround the fire warriors with the charge but only move one GS within 1”, so there was no way for the unit to die or fallback. Consolidate in so that the GS unit is both murdering and moving into other units. I can’t say it was an insurmountable problem, but it was certainly better than outright dying in overwatch.

I mean, GS might just be awful against T’au. Purestrains might be particularly bad due to not having catalyst anymore, but whenever I play death guard my stealers just tie things up anyway because they’re awful at killing plague marines even.